Shafiq Ades (Arabic: شفيق عدس, Hebrew: שפיק עדס; 1900 – 23 September 1948) was a Syrian-born Iraqi-Jewish businessman.

[1] Based in Basra, he had all of his assets confiscated by the Iraqi government and was subsequently sentenced to death during a rushed show trial, which alleged that he was a Zionist and a communist; it had become a criminal offense in Iraq and the other Arab countries for both Jews and non-Jews to be affiliated with Israel in any way following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

[citation needed] Involved with the Ford concession in the country, Ades accumulated business and personal ties with high-profile Iraqi notables and officials and even had accessibility to the regent,[3] 'Abd al-Ilah.

Martin Gilbert writes that Ades “had lunched with Government ministers and dined with the Regent.”[4] The Ford importer was by 1948 the wealthiest Jew in Iraq.

[5] He was described by historians as a “political pragmatist” with “no time for ideologues of any stripe, least of all Zionists.”[3] In July 1948, Iraq made Zionist affiliation a criminal offense.

[7][8] Mona Yahya, who had family living in Iraq at the time, later wrote about the hanging that “crowds gathered to watch the spectacle and their cheers incited the hangman to a repeat performance.

[2] The Jewish community general sentiment was that if a man as well connected and powerful as Shafiq Ades could be eliminated by the state, other Jews would not be protected any longer.

[9] The Israeli National Archives has written that after Ades’ September 1948 hanging under false accusations, as well as other legal repressions such as travel bans, “the persecutions caused many Jews to secretly cross the border to Iran and from there escape to Israel.”[10] By October following his execution, all Jews were dismissed from their government positions in the Iraqi government, totaling around 1,500 people.